Lion in the Valley (8 page)

I
proceeded to the writing room, where I inscribed two letters. The first, to
Kalenischeff, was brief. I merely requested the pleasure of an interview at the
earliest possible moment, adding that it would be useless for him to deny my
request since I was determined to see him. The letter to Miss Debenham took
longer, since I had to identify myself and list my qualifications for presuming
to address her. I added a brief account of Kalenischeff's unsavory history, assured
Miss Debenham of my (and Emerson's) willingness to assist her, and ended with a
powerful and moving appeal to reconsider her actions and halt her downward
progress on the path that could only lead to shame and sorrow.

After
leaving the letters with the safragis, I sought my own room with a satisfying
sense of duty done. I had accomplished all I could; I could accomplish no more.
Not at the moment, at any rate.

Emerson
had left a night light burning. It had become a habit of ours, since we were so
frequently disturbed by burglars and assassins. He was in bed. The artificial
evenness of his breathing indicated that he was awake, though pretending not to
be. He did not move or speak even when I joined him in the connubial bed, so I
concluded I was in disfavor. Just as well, I thought. Ramses would be on the
alert for the slightest sound from our room.

If
Miss Debenham did return to the hotel and read my letter, she would undoubtedly
attempt to speak to me in the morning. I had informed her of the hour of our
departure. The opportunity of reasoning with her was not lost, only postponed,
and as sleep brushed me with her shadowy wings I promised myself the
satisfaction of a useful interview the following morning.

Alas,
it was not to be. We were awakened at dawn by the shrieks of the hotel
servants. The safragi had
discovered the body of Kalenischeff lying
on Miss Debenham's bed in a welter of bloody sheets. He had been stabbed to the
heart; Miss Debenham had vanished from the room, and from the hotel.

Three

T
he sun
was approaching the zenith before we boarded the train that was to take us to
Dahshoor. Emerson was muttering like a volcano in danger of eruption, but, as I
had been careful to point out, he could hardly blame me for the tardiness of
our departure. All the guests had been delayed by the uproar, and we were among
many whom the police had interviewed.

"You
need not have volunteered to be interviewed," Emerson insisted. "To
question the guests was a waste of time, since the murderer undoubtedly left the
hotel long before the body was discovered."

"If
you mean Miss Debenham, Emerson, she did not commit the crime. I felt it my
duty to explain that to the police officer in charge."

"She
has disappeared, Peabody. If she is innocent, why did she flee?"

"Emerson,
how can you be so dense? She did not
flee, she was abducted by the same person
or persons who murdered Kalenischeff."

Emerson
settled himself more comfortably on the cracked leather seat of the carriage.
The pyramids were visible on the right, but for once Emerson was not distracted
by archaeological objects. He pretends to resent the interruptions of a
criminal nature that have so often marked our excavations, but wifely intuition
assures me that he is as keen on the scent as any sleuth. This was the first
opportunity we had had to discuss the murder; I could tell by the gleam in his
bright blue eyes that he was as interested as I.

"If
your theory is correct, Peabody, it means that Kalenischeff was slain in an
attempt to defend his inamorata. The heroic role is not one I would have
expected from him."

"It
is a difficulty," I admitted. "Whatever else he may have been,
Kalenischeff was no hero."

"But
he may have been a member of a conspiracy directed against the lady," said
Ramses, from his window seat next to Emerson. "Assuming for the sake of
argument that the object of that conspiracy was the extraction of money by one
means or another, Kalenischeff may have decided to betray his confederates by
marrying the lady instead of assisting in the original scheme. He would gain
sole control of her fortune by that means instead of—"

"I
was about to propose that theory, Ramses," I said severely. "Look out
the window. There is the Step Pyramid of Sakkara."

"I
am doing so," said Ramses. "The cat Bastet also appears to appreciate
the aesthetic qualities of the view, but I assure you it does not interfere in
the slightest with my ability to join you in—"

"Miss
Debenham must have been taken by force," I
insisted. "No
properly brought-up Englishwoman would run away—"

"Her
conduct makes it fairly evident that she was
not
properly brought
up," said Emerson.

I
ignored this remark. "She would have remained, chin up and shoulders
squared, to face the music. And I feel I am safe in asserting, Emerson, that
she would have come to me. She had received my letter; it was found, open, on
her dressing table."

"That
is a point against the lady," Emerson said stubbornly. "It proves
that she did return to her room last night. It places her at the scene of the
crime, Peabody, a scene from which she has disappeared. According to the
police, she also changed her clothing."

"But
they don't know which garments are missing from her wardrobe. She may have been
carried off in her night-clothes, Emerson. The horror of it!"

"Along
the corridors of the hotel, down the stairs and out into the street?"
Emerson laughed disagreeably. "No, Amelia; not even your favorite
Master—"

He
stopped himself, pressing his lips together and scowling at me.

"Now
it comes out," I exclaimed. "I did not want to accuse you unjustly,
Emerson, but you force me to be blunt. You are determined to blame poor Miss
Debenham for a crime she did not commit because of your unaccountable
reluctance to face the truth. How you can be so stubborn, after your own
encounters with the man—"

"I
warn you, Peabody," Emerson snarled.

"Who
attacked us and harassed us at Mazghunah last year? Who organized the
inefficient amateur tomb robbers of Egypt into a great professional conspiracy?
Who is a master of disguise, as was proved by his appearance
in
the role of Father Girgis, priest of the church at Mazghunah? Who,
Emerson?"

Emerson,
breathing furiously through his nose, did not reply. "The Master
Criminal," piped Ramses.

Emerson
turned an awful glare upon his son. Unperturbed, Ramses went on, "I share
your dislike of that sensational and ambiguous appellation, Papa, but I am
forced to agree with Mama that no more appropriate name comes readily to mind.
We have good reason to suspect that Prince Kalenischeff had fallen out with his
master; his decision to leave Egypt, suddenly and secretly, suggests as much.
And I am inclined to agree with Mama's belief that this mysterious personage
was the one behind the attempt on me last night. The criminal mind is a
fascinating study; it may well be that the person in question harbors some
resentment toward me because I—with your assistance, of course—foiled his
attempt to steal the Dahshoor treasure."

Emerson
acknowledged the reasonableness of this assessment with a muffled "Curse
it." He said no more, because I spoke first.

"Ramses
is correct, Emerson. The guides who were with him said they were dismissed by
an American gentleman. There were a number of tourists atop the pyramid last
night. In fact—in fact, I may have spoken to the man! Who else could he have
been but a confederate of the Master Criminal?"

"Why
not the Master Criminal himself?" Emerson tried to speak sarcastically,
but he was half convinced by my irrefutable logic, and his doubt showed in his
voice.

"Because
the Master Criminal was lying in wait at the foot of the pyramid! And I know
who he is. We thought he might be an Englishman—"

"Oh,
come, Amelia, that is really going too far, even
for you,"
Emerson shouted. "Not Ramses' rescuer? Why would he arrange for the boy to
be kidnapped, and then save him?"

"Don't
forget that it was my intervention that saved Ramses. My first impression, that
the man was carrying him off, was undoubtedly correct. Once captured by me, he
talked his way out of the situation with the ingenuity one might expect from
such a clever man. And the proof, Emerson—the proof is that he never turned up
this morning, as he promised he would."

Nemo's
failure to keep his appointment was an additional cause of Emerson's ill humor.
He is accustomed to having people do as he tells them.

"He
was alarmed by the presence of the police, I expect. A man of his
antecedents—"

"My
dear Emerson," I said in a kindly manner, "such wild rationalization
is unworthy of you. Every fact leads to the same conclusion—my
conclusion."

Emerson
did not reply. It was Ramses who cleared his throat and remarked, "If you
will excuse my mentioning it, Mama, that is not strictly accurate. Several
facts contradict your assumption, and one, I fear, is insuperable."

Emerson
looked hopefully at his son. "And what is that, my boy? Something you
observed while you were alone with the young man?"

"No,
Papa, you and Mama observed it too. I do not refer to Mr. Nemo's struggle with
the men who carried me off, which might conceivably have been staged— though I
must say it was done with a degree of verisimilitude few actors could have
achieved—for I can think of several reasons why the Master Criminal might have
arranged such a misleading performance, in order to—"

"Ramses,"
I said.

"Yes,
Mama. The fact that demolishes your otherwise intriguing theory is that my
rescuer's physical attributes were not those of the man we knew as Father
Girgis."

"He
is a master of disguise, Ramses," I said. "The black beard and wig he
wore were false—"

"But
the black eyes were not," said Ramses. "We had ample opportunity to
observe their color, did we not? The eyes of the Englishman—or, as Papa
observed, the Scot—are blue."

It
was a cruel blow. I tried to rally. "The scientific achievements of master
criminals often exceed those of scholars. A method of changing the color of the
eyes—"

"Exists,
I fear, only in fiction," said Ramses. "I have made some study of the
matter, Mama, and I know of no method of dying one's irises."

Emerson
began to laugh. "A hit, Peabody—a palpable hit! Talk your way out of that
one."

I
did not deign to reply. Though admitting I may have been in error on one small
point, I could not see that Ramses' statement had affected the essential issue.
The poor young English lady was innocent; and if the renegade Englishman was
not the Master Criminal himself, he was surely one of the latter's lieutenants.
I felt certain he had been involved in the abduction of Ramses, and that we
would never see him again.

There
is no railroad station at Dahshoor, which is almost equidistant between
Medrashein and Mazghunah. Rather than have our extensive baggage transported by
donkeyback from either of those locations, Emerson had requested that the train
stop briefly at the point nearest the site. I daresay that this favor would not
have been
accorded anyone else; but Emerson's reputation is so well
known and his powers of persuasion, particularly of a vocal variety, are so
emphatic, that the engineer of the train did as he was asked, and the
complaints of the other passengers were ignored by the porters.

A
party of our loyal men awaited us. They had been there for five hours, since we
had been unable to notify them that we had missed the early train. They were
not put out by, or worried about, the delay; when we first caught sight of them
they were sprawled in a patch of shade, smoking and
fahddling
(gossiping).
The Egyptian temperament accepts delay with a shrug and a murmured reference to
the will of Allah. This attitude exasperates Europeans and Americans
(especially the latter), who complain that the most frequently used word in the
Arabic vocabulary is
bokra
(tomorrow). Emerson says the Egyptian
approach is much more intelligent than our own constant bustle and fuss, but
although he may be correct in his judgment, he is the first to fly into a rage
when his plans are thwarted.

Be
that as it may, as soon as the train slowed, the brave fellows got to their
feet, and when one of them saw Emerson descend from the carriage, the whole
group erupted into wild gesticulations of welcome. Outstanding among the men in
physical stature as in dignity was the reis, Abdullah, who had served as our
able foreman for many seasons. He immediately enfolded Emerson in a fraternal
embrace, the voluminous folds of his robe billowing around my husband like a
sudden snowstorm. Emerson suffered this gesture stoically, and sent the rest of
the men scampering off to assist with the removal of our baggage.

I
received Abdullah's respectful and affectionate salutation somewhat
distractedly, for, to my utter astonishment, there before me was the man who
had called himself Nemo.